About
Photo: Β©Jan Sobottka
My passion for drawing and painting led me to the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in 1987. I studied painting for ten semesters with Robin Page, followed by two semesters as a master student with Robin Page.
During my studies at the Munich Art Academy, my interest lay in photorealistic painting. During this time, a portrait series of homeless people in Munich was created, among other things.
In addition to drawing, I dedicate myself to complementary color painting, which has led to a series of experimental pictures in recent years. These works show a combination of realistic painting with complementary color grids and convey a three-dimensional or spatial impression when viewed.
Since the beginning of 2022, I have been concentrating on landscape painting. Different interpretations of landscapes β graphically strongly reduced, realistic to spontaneous β show series of large, small and mini-picture formats.
I live and work with the artist Sandra Kolondam near Landshut in Bavaria.
I regularly provide information about current exhibitions and new paintings in my blog or in my newsletter.
All works can be purchased directly in my online shop.
If you are interested in larger paintings, personal delivery and a trial hanging are possible by arrangement.
Send me an inquiry by email, I will reply promptly.
Further information on current and past exhibitions can also be found at News
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Robin Page (right) and Klaus Soppe (left) during their one-year collaboration on the "BLUEBEARDs Amuseum Collection" series in 1989.
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Work Analysis
By Dr. Ingrid Gardill, Art Historian Β©
AND PRECISE OBSERVATION
Entering the studio of the draftsman, graphic artist, and painter Klaus Soppe is like stepping into a world of its own. Visitors are surrounded by works that palpably convey the earnest, deep struggle with the laws of drawing and painting and their exploitation β the manual virtuosity that the artist naturally brings to his work stems, among other things, from a sound education as a poster painter and calligrapher. The works are clearly marked by a zest and almost unbridled joy of discovery and experimentation. This also explains the rapid development from the high-contrast, hyperrealistic, classically figurative painting to the free combination and play with complementary colors, where depending on the execution, some motifs almost dissolve or plastically come to the foreground.
Each painting contains a pinch of irony and humor β Klaus Soppe was, after all, a master student and collaborator of the rebel, Fluxus and conceptual artist Robin Page at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich. Through him, he not only gained deep insight into painting techniques but also learned how important and necessary it is to always find new paths to lightness with this solid foundation.
The artist finds his inspiration in everyday life. As a socially and politically aware person, he noticed how much dignity some homeless people radiate in cities. To explore this observation, he talked to them and asked them to model for him. This resulted in the expressive portrait series of the "Street Dwellers" with a total of 9 paintings. It illuminates the essence of each person and imbues them with an almost ceremonial demeanor.
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COLOR EXPERIMENTS AND COMPLEMENTARY PAINTING
After the turn of the millennium, Klaus Soppe increasingly explored the phenomenon of color's effect on perception. Series of nude back portraits emerged, their skin's vibrancy stemming from contrasting cool-warm tones. He places them against a monochrome background, which he sometimes cross-hatches with the complementary tone (e.g., blue / orange-red). This initially creates a shimmer that only resolves at a distance, revealing an atmospherically effective space. The special effect, however, is that the nude back portrait stands out so plastically as if it were within reach. The three-dimensional appearance is exclusively created by the complementary grids. The painter achieves outstanding modeling less with light-dark gradations than with cool-warm contrasts.
Inspired by Paul CΓ©zanne's apple still lifes, finger exercises and further color experiments with complementary grids followed. In these, Klaus Soppe, similar to the Pointillists, makes pure colors glow through precise placement in the grid. Also in this series called "Variations of Paul's Apples", the artist often uses strong, almost garish colors reminiscent of Pop Art. Consequently, he likes to refer to his painting, with a twinkle in his eye, as Pop-Neo-Impressionism.
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CHILDHOOD THEMES
In "Utopia," the artist smiles at us as a little boy, surrounded by toys, symbolic objects, and sitting in front of a canvas that, in turn, bridges the gap to the present. The phantom image of his father, whom the artist never got to know, protectively rests a hand on his shoulder. The desire for security and recognition, but also reconciliation with the past, come alive in the painting. The child on the canvas shows Klaus Soppe's older brother, whom he captured in the work "Brave Boy" at a moment when he bravely confronted a danger with a knife. Here, a brief but formative moment of his biography is frozen in a shockingly drastic way. Going even further back in time is "Operation Hurricane," which can be read as a homage to the artist's mother. It shows her as a young, pregnant woman in a heavenly cone of light, while bombs fall on the ruins of Duisburg around her. This Allied air raid was considered one of the heaviest in Germany. Klaus Soppe evokes memories of his mother and grandmother's stories, who sought refuge in air raid shelters for many nights. But he depicts her not as a victim, but as a radiant woman who mastered it all. The delicately glazed, at times transparent-looking paint application symbolically contrasts with the impasto, monochrome hail of bombs emerging from the rasterized cross-hatchings in the background.
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BIOGRAPHICAL NARRATION
However, the artist does not stop at the "hunger for colors" and the skillful exploration of their effect. The choice of motifs, which he stages with his ever-developing technique, is at least as essential. Here, Klaus Soppe draws from the source of his own life. He illuminates the depths of his history, with its lights, shadows, and dislocations. In the process of artistic engagement, one's own buried experiences can be revived and often overcome. The multiple layers of time and narrative condense in the paintings through different spatial and perceptual levels and symbolic metaphors. This type of pictorial narration is reminiscent of the Leipzig School around Neo Rauch. Yet, Klaus Soppe has developed his unmistakably unique style within it.
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LIGHT EFFECTS AND REDUCTION
Less dramatic, yet equally virtuously staged and artistically executed, is the large landscape format "Another World", in which a young girl curiously peers through the letterbox of a front door. The bright light from the apartment falls over her lost profile and brings the work very close to the chiaroscuro painting of the 16th-century Dutch Caravaggisti, who used light-dark effects in such a way that the faces of the protagonists were intensely illuminated by a hidden light source. At the same time, Klaus Soppe thus achieves a special atmosphere of intimacy and mystery in the scene. But it is not only the dramaturgy of light that convinces, but also the many small details, which are masterfully executed, omitting everything unimportant.
It is all the more surprising how the artist manages all this, even though he has at the same time reduced his palette to only 4 to 5 color values. With this limitation, in turn, he creates an exceedingly impressive clarity that makes his compositions literally glow. Klaus Soppe also succeeds in creating tension between a rasterized, ornamentally appearing background and realistically executed figurativeness, in preserving the fine transparency of the paintings, in using the sensitive stroke originating from drawing for painting, and in playfully and experimentally expanding the boundaries of color theory. Thus, he bestows upon the viewer a virtuously unconventional, narratively captivating oeuvre. ββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ
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Vita
1961 Born in Duisburg
1977 to 1980 Training as a window dresser and poster painter / calligrapher
1981 to 1982 Head of the Graphic Department of the Bundeswehrdruckerei Adenau
1982 to 1987 Employed as a window dresser & calligrapher
from 1984 first drafts and concepts for shop fittings and shop designs
1987 Began studying painting and applied graphics at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, with Prof. Robin Page.
During his studies, worked freelance as an illustrator.
Various publications of illustrations for, among others,
FOCUS Magazin Verlag,
SΓΌdwest-Verlag,
Calig-Verlag
Siemens AG
as well as for BMW AG, among others.
1990 one-year painting collaboration with Prof. Robin Page, during which the 16-part series "Bluebeard Amuseum Collection" by Robin Page was created
1990 Art scholarship from the Danner Foundation
1991 Art scholarship from the Fanny-Carlita-Foundation
1991 Engagement with the theme of portraiture and the creation of the portrait series "MΓΌnchner Stadtstreicher" (Munich Tramps)
1992 to 1993 Master student with Prof. Robin Page
1993 Diploma from the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, in Painting and Applied Graphics
Since 1989 Freelance as a painter and designer.
Since then, also created larger design concepts, e.g.
for the research department of SIEMENS AG in 1997 on the occasion of its 150th anniversary at the ICC Berlin.
Further design and conceptual work as well as brand development for retail.
1995 Birth of daughter Anna
1998 Birth of twin sons Jakob & Felix
2011 to 2018 Lecturer at the Montessori Fachoberschule fΓΌr Gestaltung
since 1990 various solo and group exhibitions at home and abroad
2018 to 2019 Board member of the MΓΌnchner KΓΌnstlergenossenschaft 1868
2018 to 2026 Member of the MΓΌnchner KΓΌnstlerhausverein am Lenbachplatz
2019 Creation of the seven-part painting series Pula, Croatian Adriatic coast
2023 Second place in the art competition "The Human Body" of the MSE Kunsthalle (Interview with Andreas Pawlitschko)
... read more at News
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